Monday, August 25, 2014

August 25, 2014

Happy P-Day!

And here we are again starting a new week here in sunny California. By the way can you please share some of your rain with us? It has been pretty toasty here in Cerritos, California and is only going to go up this week. What say ye? Haha

Sounds like everything went pretty smooth in Bridget's transition to college life. There is no doubt in my mind that she will have a good time. I couldn't help but chuckle when I saw that she has roommates who like Dr. Who, I guess we know what she will be doing every weekend right? ;) I know her pain about church starting at 9, I had the same schedule at USU my first year. Are her roommates also members? I always found it easier to go to church when there was someone to go with. Either way I bet she will love her YSA ward. It will be fun to hear about her adventures this first year.

So what is the plan for you and dad as new empty nesters? I guess you still have your Spanish class going on still right? Now you and Dad can practice together ;P I bet you guys will find enough activities to do.

Thanks for the pictures, they should work out perfectly. Mission success! Thanks!

Well this week was full of service opportunities, and a lot of eye opening experiences. First off we dropped our baptism date with Michael because we have been teaching to fast and he hasn't been understanding what we have shared. Plus his mom told us that right now Michael wants to be baptized out of emotion and not for desire. So we decided we were going to go back and re-teach everything a little bit slower and really make sure he understands everything and gains a testimony about the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. So that is the plan for him. It doesn't look like we will get it done this transfer, but we are hoping to do it next transfer.

To be completely honest that was the highlight of the week. We had a lot of service opportunities and that took up quite a bit of our proselyting time. This week is already looking chucked full of activities. But we are hoping to use every possible minute available to find new people to teach and help our investigators progress. We are really going to have to practice our diligence, time management, and effectiveness skills this week. I will be completely honest as well, this week is going to fly by.

Thanks for the emails. Have a good week. Siga trabajando con el Espanol, ya esta mejorando.

Love,
Elder Roberts

I remembered my Camera this week. So here are the pictures from our Habanero Challenge two weeks ago. Like I said in my last email I took a video and it is too big to send in an email. So I hope you enjoy the pictures and remain excited for the video.

Les quiero mucho.







Sunday, August 24, 2014

August 17, 2014

Hey you guys!!

Well I am sure you already know what I am going to say.... This week went by super fast as always. How do I describe this this.... Hot, full of service, missionary unity, and the crushing of weekly goals. Ya that should be a good enough description. Have a good week :P

Haha jk I better write more so Mom doesn't get mad at me. First off thanks for all the support you have given me the past month. For your patience in sending me package after package, and transferring money
over to my account to replace stuff. I did find a new running watch at wal-mart. It is the same brand as the one I had, it is a little bit bigger which if fine. I should receive my other package this week. Thank you for helping me out with this stuff.

Thanks for the update, and pictures, of the Ogden temple. I agree with you it did seem like it took a while to build. But it looks awesome! Definitely have to put it on the list of temples to visit in the near future. You guys look super happy and well in the fotos, thanks for sending them :)

So a couple highlights of this week. First off with the humorous: Missionary Unity. All the Spanish Elders decided that we needed to improve our Spanish. So we bought some habaneros at Wal-Mart and after District Meeting on Thursday we all at a habanero. Let's just say there was alot of sweating, crying and consumption of milk and bread. It was super fun; I don't know if it improved our spanish, but it definitely improved our unity. I forgot to bring my camera today, plus the Elder took a video instead of pictures. So you will have to wait to see what happened :)

So this week we really wanted to help Michael understand the Restoration as well as the importance of baptism. Well we accomplished both of those goals and committed Michael to baptism for the 24 of this month. To be honest though we will probably move it back a week to the 31 because we still have several lessons to teach and we want to include more members in our lessons. But we are hoping to help him be baptized before the end of the transfer. He is such an awesome kid and is super excited to keep progressing in the Gospel.

One thing that also stuck out to me is that our Heavenly Father always provides for us. We have set, as a companionship, a goal of 2 new investigators a week. Well for this week we got to Saturday and hadn't
found anyone for the week. We had been working hard and talking with everyone, but just not having any success. Well Sunday night rolls around we we head out to work hoping to find those two new investigators. We had a lesson set up with an investigator at 6 and when we showed up his roommate was there and we asked if he wanted to listen as well. He accepted and we found one new investigator. Then we had a rough lesson set up with a referral at 7 and we weren't completely sure if it would go through. But we showed up and she was there and we taught her as well. So by the end of the night we had found 2 new investigators.

It taught me two principles: Diligence and patience. Diligence because we easily could have slacked off and strive to improve next week. But instead we got out and worked hard and because of so, we found new
people to teach. And patience because God will provide in His own time. Two basic principles, yet powerful.

So ya that was our week. This week we already have super solid plans to help Michael prepare for baptism, and to commit our other investigators to take the same step of faith. It should be a good, busy week.

Love you all. Have a good week!

Elder Roberts

Monday, August 11, 2014

August 11, 2014

Que Tal?

Well happy Monday and happy P-Day! This week really flew by like past weeks. Our week was full of service opportunities, finding opportunities, and fun activities. We have definitely been busy working and the Lord is definitely blessing us for all the efforts we are putting forth.

So to answer Mom's question about running. There is another Spanish companionship who live around the block from us. So Elder Packer and I usually run to their apartment to meet them, and then we run to a park. At the park there is one of those exercising park (Like the ones at USU with the pull-up, push-up bars, and things to help you stretch). So Elder Packer and Elder Petersen usually stop and stretch while Elder Passey and I keep running laps until the other Elders are ready to leave. I was so excited to get back into running this transfer that I got into trouble. So Elder Passey also ran XC and Track in high school, so that first day of running we took off at a faster pace than the other Elders. Well I forgot we have to stay in sight of our companions and got chastised by our ZL's. So we switched to the current route we have now. Hahahaha :P

So I got confused with the update on Manuel. He didn't get the notice from the doctor to his manager to stay in his apartment due to his injuries. Mostly because Manuel informed his manager that he would start receiving his disability check to pay for his rent, he just didn't know when it would come. Well it doesn't come for another week or so, so his manager told him to pay what he owes or he has to move out. His deadline was today and we haven't been able to contact Manuel to see if he was able to pay it. Hopefully we can find him at home tonight and find out what is going to happen.

So this week we had a really good week of finding. We found 2 new investigators to start teaching, one is a part member family. Se llama la familia Pinillos, and the mom, Nelly, was baptized a while ago back in Peru with her family. But when she moved to the United States she married a non-member and fell away from the church. Well she started having some struggles with her husband and with the church they were attending. Then she started meeting LDS members and later saw the English Elders walking in front of her house. So she stopped them and asked them to help her get back to church. So they contacted us and we contacted Nelly.

She has 3 kids, Michael (11), Valeria (5) and Celestial (3). Michael hasn't been baptized and his mom would like him, and her children, to learn about the church. So we invited them to come to church and they absolutely loved it. The kids loved Primary and Nelly immediately started meeting members. Later that day there was a baptismal service and they came to it. Not only came, but Michael bore his testimony! His first day learning about the church and he is bearing his testimony that is awesome. Think that is cool? Oh just wait it gets better. Our ward planned to go to the Visitor Center and the L.A Temple and la familia Pinillos went with them. It was cool to see how excited they are to become active in the Church. They are such a bomb family!

So ya that was the highlight of the week. The Lord is definitely blessing us with success and we are super excited for this week. We are really going to work hard with the investigators we have and help them come closer to our Heavenly Father and Christ.

Love,

Elder Roberts

Monday, August 4, 2014

August 4, 2014



Hola....Hi....Yeah!

Well another week has flown by, another month has flown by, and all is well in the great California Long Beach Mission. It actually surprised me how fast this week flew by to be completely honest. Usually when
you start a new transfer that first week just seems to drag. But this week we definitely work super hard.

We definitely started out this week with some super hard service. Our mission is trying to start implementing service for each companionship. They are encouraging us to do 10 hours of service a week. Well this week we definitely did an equivalent of 10 hours of service for a member in our ward. Elder Packer, myself and two other missionaries helped him dig up and "sacar" (Sorry my mind can't translate this word into english :P) some roots. Man that was some hard work I won't lie. It was a lot of digging, cutting, and pulling for about 4 hours. As you can see in the pictures we worked extremely hard in the burning California sun. It reminded me a lot of Crossfit and the death workouts I use to do. In the end we got them all out and we had a fun time doing it. And the next 2 days I was super sore :P


Thank you for sending me the two packages, especially the Journal. Especialmente gracias papi por escribirme! With the ankle brace I can return to playing basketball this week ;) JK JK JK I won't play for
another 2 weeks probably. My ankle is doing alot better. This week I got back into running with Elder Packer and another companionship every day. It is cool because in the other companionship there is an
Elder who ran cross country and track during high school as well. So we have been running together and he has kicked my butt. That is okay though, maybe I can loose a few pounds running with him.

Well after 2 weeks of not finding any new investigators, we found one on Saturday and he is bomb. His name Royler, from Cuba, and he is super prepared to receive the Gospel. We applied a couple trainings
from our last Zone Conference in this lesson and it helped us out a ton. We were able to know Royler better, he established his expectations, we established our expectations, and we taught super simply and he understood everything. It was cool to see the blessings that came from applying the trainings from our leaders. Definitely strengthened my testimony that our leaders do receive revelation to help us have success in this great work.

So a quick update with our investigators that you all know. Manuel just got noticed by his insurance that they won't pay for most of the surgeries he needs to fix his knees and back. So pretty much he is going to continue with the therapy and see if he can get more financial help. Because of this the doctors sent a notice to his manager informing him about Manuel's condition and recommending that he keep his apartment until he gets the necessary surgeries. This is definitely a blessing for sure. We were super happy to hear that he will be able to stay in his apartment longer and we are going to work super hard to help him get baptized.

Geraldo is progressing super well. We realized that we don't have that many lessons to teach him and he is ready to be baptized. The only thing stopping him is his marriage situation. So we decided to try and set some plans with him to get baptized. Well in short he told us that he is going to work on that situation as long as we keep coming by and visit him. So hopefully as we keep coming by he will start taking those steps of faith to come closer to our Heavenly Father.

Well that is pretty much the week in review. It definitely helped me realize that Christ is working with us in this work and is guiding us to his prepared children. It definitely helped me realize that as I step out of my comfort zone and really get lost in this work, He will give us the guidance and strength to have success and joy in this work.

Thank you for all you do!

















Hey thought I better inform you about this as well :) So we had an
Elder in the zone have to get glasses to help his eyesight. Well he
kinda felt embarrassed having to wear glasses. So I decided to help
him out and got some glasses as well :) Haha don't worry they aren't
real glasses, just cheapo $5 glasses from the mall that don't have a
prescription. Definitely a little different feeling, but anything to
help out another Elder is worth it.

Enjoy! Have a good week!





Love,
Elder Roberts